The Next Best Thing
by shygirly
Summary: A Carby closure story. Omit the impersonal goodbye from The show must go on and add this one in its place . . .


**Authors**** notes:** _First of all, I have to apologize to everyone for taking the giant break that I have just come back from. I'm so sorry that I have left stories unfinished and some of you wondering if I will ever complete them. I am working on completing The Lonely Hearts Club and After the Rain. This story is something that came about in the mean time, while I was experiencing writers block in attempts to finish my other pieces. This is a "Carby closure" fic. It kind of surprised me to find only a handful of Carby goodbye pieces, so here is mine. I wanted to make it as realistic as possible, but I'm afraid it's probably not. I hope you guys enjoy this and accept this little extra as an apology for my absence! Thank you for reading and reviewing all of my stories. _

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The Next Best Thing

It's past midnight as she finds herself strolling down the street all on her own, the dark night air filtering smoothly through her long locks of dark chocolate hair. She notices that the air is comfortably cool for this time of year, how the pavement is shinning a little brighter tonight, the moon shown in only the slightest silver crescent. A soft smile creeps upon her face as she notices the street signs. She doesn't remember how she got here, doesn't know how she even remembered where he had told her his new brownstone was located. But tonight she is just following an instinct, trusting her body to take her where she knows she has to go. She is heading toward closure.

She walks up the steps clutching the railing tightly, praying that it will grab her if she decides to turn around. But she gets all the way up to the door and before she can knock, she catches his face in the window. He smiles as he notices her standing at the door and then he is out of view, on his way to meet her.

He greets her with the most welcoming smile, like he was expecting her to come to him tonight. Before he can even say anything, she starts to explain.

"I'm sorry I didn't make it to the party. You know that balcony collapsed and. . ." Her words trail off as she realizes that he doesn't need to know why she didn't make it. And he knows already that it wasn't her choice not to be there.

"Yeah, I saw as I was leaving." He holds a roll of packing tape in his hand and fiddles with the dispenser as he leans his body against the doorframe. She leans her bottom against the railing next to the steps.

"I delivered my five-hundredth baby today." Her eyes light up and she shrugs her shoulders humbly, stating proudly her new perfectly rounded number.

"Really, five hundred already?"

"I guess a couple years in OB put me a little ahead of the average first year."

"Almost ahead of _me_." He's proud of her and wants to tell her. But he just smiles at her and she already knows that he's impressed. He's been impressed this whole year, watching her from far, noting how well she's doing. And every day feeling less and less guilty for leaving her, as he's noticed she's doing better on her own than she ever was with him.

"Well, um, you look really busy and I don't want to bother you. I just wanted to say goodbye before you go." She starts to walk off, as she raises her hand in the air with a bit of a wave.

"Abby." He bows his head and calls her out, communicating that it would be ridiculous for her not to come inside for one last chat. She turns around as the corners of her mouth raise slightly and she's glad that he didn't let her walk off quite yet. Throwing his head in the direction of the door, he smiles at her and then reaches his hand out to grab hers, and ushers her inside his home.

She walks through the entry hall and immediately recalls the scent in the air, the way all of his belongings smelled like him. And even though she has never been to this new house, she would have known it was his just by the scent alone.

He shows her into the living room where there are boxes pilled almost all the way to the ceiling, most of them scribed with the word "storage", some of them scribed "memories". Walking buy a short stack she piers into an open box filled with pictures and small trinkets, some of which she recognizes as accoutrements that had graced the mantle in his old apartment. And from underneath a small glass vase, she notices a picture of only herself, a sweet photo that he had taken of her when she was begging him to put the camera away.

"Coffee?"

She is stricken out of her reverie just long enough for her to nod her head and continue to look into the box. Taking a seat on the couch, she resists the urge to reach into it, to tear the box open and let the whole mess out, to dive into the memories and the inanimate objects that lended life to their old relationship.

She smiles up at him as he returns to the couch, handing her a mug, and she makes herself comfortable pushing her body into the corner where the back of the couch meets the armrest. She runs her hands though her hair and sips the bitter liquid.

"Where are you gonna live?"

"I don't know, I guess I'll figure it out when I get there."

He shrugs his shoulders and willfully admits that he doesn't exactly have a plan, so she takes a deep breath and presses on just a little.

"I didn't come here to ask you this . . . but I'm going to anyway.-

-What?"

She searches his eyes for a moment and decides that she's just going to say it; he won't get angry with her now -not tonight.

"Are you running away?"

"Yes." His answer almost cuts her off, the most honest thing she has ever heard from him, her mouth almost dropping at the shock of his admission. She's quiet for a long while, doesn't know what to say because she never thought he'd admit it. And there's nothing else to say, no reason to try and convince him to stay, no reason to make him see what he's doing is so wrong. He already knows and he doesn't need to hear it. And she knows it too. So she tries to relate to him, digs deep down to where all her old memories are buried and pulls up a part of herself that she has never shared.

"I ran away once."

"What?" She pulls her feet under her bottom and makes herself comfortable as Carter leans his body onto the opposite end of the couch.

"I was like twenty-two and drinking. A lot. The guy I was with, right after college, we were together for a couple years. I met him at an AA meeting when I quickly decided that I was gonna try to get sober. So we started dating and then I moved in with him, and about six months later . . . I started drinking again. I hid it from him for a long time, you know, learned all those tricks so I wouldn't get caught. Problem was, he was an addict too, so he knew all the tricks already." She smiles and roles her eyes at her own stupidity, actually realizing just how screwed up she was as she tells this story for the first time in forever. "He let it slide for almost a year and I was paranoid all the time, then I finally realized that he knew my secret."

She stops to sip her coffee and lifts her brows, almost indicating that her story is just about to get good.

"So I took off. I was so messed up. . and broke. . . and scared. I got in my car and somehow ended up in Seattle. I met people out at bars and I stayed on their couches, every week a different couch, a different apartment. . . And then one night . . um. . . I wrapped my car around a tree."

His lower lip drops a little as he opens his eyes wide, his concerned expression prompting her to wave his worry away. "I didn't get hurt. It was like four in the morning and no one was around."

"What happened?"

"So this guy that I had met came to pick me up and he took me back to his place. I didn't know him that well. He was just a friend of a friend. Anyway, he took me to his apartment and the last thing I remember from that night was passing out on his couch. . . I woke up the next morning and," She takes a deep breath and looks down at her hands before continuing. "my clothes were gone . . . and so was he. When I realized where I was and remembered what happened, - _actually_, when I spotted my clothing laying in a heap next to the coffee table, I told myself that I was never gonna have another sip of alcohol ever again." And under her breath, she tries to joke, "We both know how that turned out."

"Abby-" He whispers to her and doesn't know what else he should say. He wants to comfort her, tell her how sorry he is for the way she was violated. But he realizes that she doesn't need his comfort; she's passed this bad place now. She wants to reflect on the past and talk about what she learned, and how she got there.

"I called my brother and he came to pick me up. And two days later I was getting my bed assignment in a rehab facility."

"You never told me you went to rehab."

"I know"

"Why not?"

"I was too proud. I was supposed to be strong for you."

"Why are you telling me now?"

"Last minute honesty I guess." She knows this will be the last conversation they'll have in a while and she wants it to mean something. She wants this last talk to be about life and lessons and the convictions they held fast to along their way. Because no matter what, she will always remember what she told him tonight, how she let a little piece of her go just when she thought she was succeeding at holding everything in. She knows that in some way he'll take her story with him and remember her strength at times when he thinks he has lost his own.

He moves down the couch, closer to her, and gently covers her hand with his own as it rests upon her knee.

"Thank you"

"For what?"

"For trusting me. For telling me."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before."

"You're different now Abby. I wouldn't have expected you to tell me before."

"You're right."

"I remember you told me one night that you didn't think people can change, but look at yourself. It seems like you have everything you ever wanted. You're a doctor and you're sober. You should be proud of yourself."

"I'm still me." She smiles at his acknowledgment, but the discussion is bitter sweet. This is all she ever wanted from him, his approval, for him to see her thriving. But she has everything she ever wanted and no one special to share it with. And the loneliness almost cancels out all the happiness that has come with her completed endeavors.

She wants to communicate how different it must look on the outside, how there are things that still pain her on the inside, things that she lets nobody see. She's about to tell him of her most recent troubles, the nightmares and the aloneness that came after she was taken from the ambulance bay. But she is saved when he surprisingly continues to applaud her.

"I hope Jake knows what he has." He takes a sip of his coffee and rests his mug on his knee and she thinks about his statement carefully before answering.

"I think . . he did. . . But we just broke up."

"I'm sorry"

"Don't be. . . It wasn't right from the beginning. I think I was settling for him," She shrugs her shoulders and admits something that she hasn't even gone over in her own head. "because he was there, and he wanted to be with me."

"You shouldn't settle. You deserve so much more than that." She nods her head in appreciation, but thinks to herself that he should follow his own advice. And he knows full well that he is doing the exact opposite of what he is telling her. He doesn't want her to end up like him, settling for the next best thing.

They shyly smile at each other before Abby flinches and moves her hair out of her eyes.

"Give me something."

"What?"

"Tell me something. I just told you something that I've never told you before. Now it's your turn."

He takes a minute to think about what he's going to say, and with nothing particularly juicy to reveal, he comes up with a basic fact.

"I chartered a flight."

"What?"

"When I came to be with you in Nebraska, when you went to get Eric. There were no flights available and so many were canceled because of the storm, so I chartered a private one-way."

"You did that?"

He shrugs his shoulders and answers strongly.

"I had to get there."

She shakes her head and covers her eyes for a moment, embarrassed with the realization that he really would have done anything for her. She sighs audibly, angry at herself but also pained by her constant self depreciating emotions.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For all the times I should have done anything to get to you . . . but didn't"

"I forgave you a long time ago, Abby. . . I wish you could forgive me."

She's hit hard by his words and for a long moment she thinks about her reply, not quite certain that she wants to dig up the past on a night when they both should be looking toward the future. But its too late, this discussion started the minute he opened the doors to his home. She looks at him and then down at her now luke-warm coffee before shrugging her shoulders.

"You never asked me to. . . I think for almost two years now I've been waiting for you to say something, anything to give me the slightest insight into your decision process. I guess I was waiting for us to talk about what happened and we never did. Its not your fault, I just think that I was holding all this in, waiting for the day to unload it, but right now it all kind of doesn't seem to matter anymore. I think the only thing that matters is that were both happy."

Throwing his arm over the back of the couch, he finds her hand hanging on the other side and links their fingers together. He holds her hand and squeezes it softly in a friendly, yet intimate way.

"Are you happy?"

She thinks about the question and remembers the time Luka asked her as well. Although it's been quite some time since she gave Luka her answer, it's still the same one. But this time she answers with more conviction.

"I'm getting there."

For a while longer they talk about their early years, med school stories and practical jokes, their first times making mistakes with patients, the first times each of them saw somebody die. They try to recall their MCAT scores and trade wild stories from their days in rehab. He asks how her mother and brother are, and she thanks him for his concern. She inquires about the programs of the new clinic and almost asks him when he'll come back to check on its progression. They swap old family stories and they even talk about the first time they made love to each other behind the doors of a trauma room.

In another hour they've fallen into something of a trance, talking and smiling and sharing hopes and dreams for their futures. Their hands are still entwined at the back of the couch, neither of them glimpsing at the clock until she catches the numbers glowing on her cell phone.

He follows her as she walks to the door and the sadness starts to come over him with the realization that he is going to go far too long without having a midnight talk with his best friend. So when they get to the threshold he reaches for her shoulder and turns her around, and does the only thing that might make him feel a little better.

She lets him hold her face in his hands and instinctively she meets his mouth, both of their lips slightly parted in an almost chaste kiss. She wraps her arms tightly around him as he moves his lips to her cheek and then to her jaw line and then to her ear.

"I'm gonna miss you." He whispers it to her and she holds him for dear life, his hands rubbing circles down her back.

As they stand at his door step she buries her head into his neck and speaks in the softest voice, part of her almost hoping he won't hear her.

"I just wanted to tell you. . . " She takes a deep breath and thinks quickly if she can change what she was going to say into something about a patient from the fire. But she goes on shakily, realizing that she's got nothing to loose. " um, for all those times I had the chance and never did . . . that I love you." She can't believe she just said it, a phrase that she has gone over in her head countless times. She has told this to him in so many ways, but the words never actually came out of her mouth.

"I knew you did Abby, even though you never said it. . . I knew it."

He runs his hands to the back of her head and pulls her face away from his chest, making her look him in the eye. With his fingers on her neck and his thumbs grazing her cheeks he tells her what she always wanted to hear.

"I love you too."

She smiles sadly, before letting him kiss her again, this time not so innocently.

He kisses her like he knows her so well, his tongue tentatively meeting hers for the first time all over again. The kiss is slow, and uncertain, both of them aware that this isn't the conventional way to say goodbye. But their lips remain locked as his hands travel down her sides to hold her waist.

They pull away from each other as he rests his forehead upon hers, and for just one millisecond she almost asks him to stay, and in that same moment he almost offers to be with her forever. But instead he pushes the idea out of his head and kisses her one last time as he moves his hands over her shoulders, down her arms and into her hands.

"Um, I should go." Her voice cracks as she freely lets a tear fall from her eye. And he doesn't miss a beat before he reaches up to gently dissolve it.

"My flight isn't until the early morning. Maybe you can stay a while longer."

She shakes her head and lets her eyes fall to the floor.

"I've got to get home."

"Abby" He presses on, gently pleading.

"John" She looks at him and cocks her head, begging him not to make this harder than it already is. She is confused about what he wants from her, but knows at the same time what will happen if she walks back in the doorIt's the first moment that she feels bad for him for the choices that he has made, and she can see the regret in his face in a last ditch effort to somehow make everything right again. She knows full well that it can't just happen in one night, but on this night, they were pretty close to going back to the way it was. And she wants to stay longer, but she knows what she has to do. Taking a step back to him she walks right into his shadow and underneath his frame. She lightly takes his hand and holds it at her hip, squeezing it tightly before she whispers to him, "I need to let you go."

He nods his head to oblige and squeezes her hand one last time as she turns around, but he keeps hold of her and in a split second he pulls her back to him, hard, and his hands are in her hair, her arms wrapped strongly around his waist, their lips meeting in a crash of intensity.

He kisses her furiously, wiping away all the times that he hurt her feelings, all the times she wasn't there when he needed her, and for all the times in the future that they'll feel empty inside without a friend to turn to. He walks her backwards through the front door and she doesn't fight it anymore, Abby follows willingly, with her lips still attached to his.

They separate long enough for her to follow him silently up the stairs and in another moment they are falling onto the bed together, feeling and touching and rediscovering territory that is new and old all at the same time. She kisses him with every emotion she has felt for him in the last five years. And in her mind she envisions the cardboard box falling over downstairs, pictures and trinkets of their relationship covering the living room like a blanket of snow.

His hands come up to her face as he pulls slowly away from her and he looks into her eyes as he traces a pattern around her jaw line. She smiles as she reaches for the hem of her shirt and he watches as she pulls it slowly over her head and falls on top of him. He holds her around her waist and runs his hands down her bare back, blazing a trail of kisses from her neck to her ear. She laughs as his kisses tickle her sensitive skin and he is stunned at the amount of times she has smiled, and thinks about the way he will remember her, - happy and free.

As he makes love to her he recalls that this is the only thing that has ever felt right, that all his other relationships were only supposed to be practice for this particular one. And in a moment of sadness he remembers that this beautiful dance is only goodbye.

She knows that this isn't exactly the right thing to do, but she can't resist this one last connection with him, the chance to separate from each other on a note of pure ecstasy. She could try to justify this act in so many ways, but it doesn't even matter. It doesn't matter where he is going, and it doesn't matter that she will wake in the morning alone. They both know that he will leave her in a tangled mess of sheets before the sun even begins to show.

Afterward, they lay spent in each others embraces, breathless and sated and dreaming of all the old possibilities that were once lying ahead of them. She lays her head underneath his shoulder and listens to his heartbeat, trying to remember everything about this moment, everything about the last time she'll hold him. He draws lazy circles on her back as they remain speechless; both afraid to say something, both knowing that once someone speaks, this fantasy will be over. So they stay silent and wrap their arms even tighter around each other.


End file.
